The invention relates to a machine for the production of knitted goods with a plurality of stitch-forming elements and with at least one stitch-forming location, which has an associated spinning device, which from a roving yarn produces a sliver or a yarn and respectively feeds this to multiple stitch-forming elements, a method for the production of knitted goods and also knitted goods produced according to the method.
Knitting machines, in particular circular knitting machines, in which a sliver or a yarn that is produced from a roving yarn directly by the knitting systems of spinning devices associated with the knitting machine is fed to the knitting needles, have already been known for some time. Thus, WO 2004/079068 A2 describes a knitting machine, in which drafting devices draw a roving yarn to a sliver of desired fineness and feed this directly to the knitting needles. The knitted goods produced from such a sliver are distinguished by their extreme softness and very pleasant feel. It was further proposed in this publication to respectively produce a conventional or non-conventional yarn by means of spinning devices on the machine and to feed this to the knitting needles, if knitted goods with a slightly higher stability are to be produced.
A knitting machine with drafting devices, the bottom rollers of which are motor-driven, wherein the motors of multiple drafting devices are respectively associated with a common frequency converter and are also actuated by the control device of the knitting machine, is known from DE 10 2005 052 693 A1. A change in the thickness of the sliver can only be made for multiple knitting locations simultaneously here, as a result of which the patterning possibilities of this known machine are greatly restricted.
WO 2009/026734 A1 describes a compact drafting device for knitting machines, in which the apron rollers and a withdrawal roller pair are driven by separate motors. The apron rollers are coupled to a feed roller pair for drive purposes. However, control techniques have thus far enabled knitting machines that are equipped with these drafting devices to produce only horizontal stripe patterns by generating slivers or yarns of different thickness, and not patterns in which the sliver or yarn thickness changes within a stitch row when all the drafting devices draw the same roving yarn. This was previously only possible when roving yarns of different thickness are fed to the individual drafting devices. However, when changing to a different pattern the roving yarn bobbins then have to be exchanged on the machine, which is very complex.